Mixed changing room - is this considered ok these days?

[Scirocco]

Today I took my toddler swimming. Or rather, tried to.

We walked in to a giant changing area, with rows of cubicles with partial height walls and doors (gaps above and below them, doors low enough that you could see the heads of people changing). No single sex changing option. Men walking around mid-change (a towel round a waist, for example). The aisle in between the cubicles had quite a few people (all men or boys) standing looking at their phones.

Maybe it's me, maybe I'm just being prudish, but it felt really inappropriate and unsafe, with an absence of privacy.

When I asked the receptionist if there was single-sex changing available, I was told no, because it's more inclusive this way...

Is this the normal now?

(We went to the park instead.)

@TheClogLady @NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision

It's about being realistic and aware of what actually goes on in the world. Sex crimes are not unique to males so your single sex spaces are not the golden answer in any terms anyway. Look at the ever rising knife crime rate, drug dealing or even county lines that is what you need to worry about.

Sending DS into a locked space away from me at age 8 as some are suggesting is a risk that he maybe exposed to something much worse than a picture, that's the reality of the world we live in. That's what you need to worry about, that's what you need to safeguard against, technology is ever changing we have the insta360 which DS uses to upload video's to YouTube.

It's not much bigger than the size of my hand and because it is black it is easily to lose sometimes multiple times a day.

Someone could use that it for anything you're imagining regardless of gender, which leaves you with two choices, teach kids that anything online is for life and is insignificant so you can protect against the actual big risks or worry about the small things whilst missing the bigger picture.

I know where I stand I will protect him against the actual physical threats to his future if that means a small increase in the risk of some unsavoury pictures being taken so be it. We don't have a perfect world where you can remove both risk's so it's a case of picking one and as a mum with a son that's mixed gender spaces so he can be supervised.

Luckily we live rurally, our local pool is very much family change so he grabs the cubicle next to us. The majority of toilets are single cubicles but we have only just started at age 10 allowing him in the males alone if we are directly outside and it's an area we trust. I wouldn't allow it in say a shopping centre in a city he still goes with a parent in those cases as you don't know what someone is up to on the other side a door, DH was offered drugs in a restaurant toilet not long ago.

@sleepyscientist
Men and boys are 98% of convicted sex offenders. So it's not "regardless of gender" (by which I assume you mean sex).

You have weighed up the statistically low risk of your child being kidnapped/abducted Vs the higher risk of you or your child being victims of sex offences. You have decided that you prefer to take the risk of sexual offences being committed against you and your child. Do you think it is fair to remove the choice of women who have decided the other way?

Have you thought about getting your DH to take your DS swimming or into the male changing room?

every swimming pool has mixed sex changing round here, I just assumed everywhere does now. Also in a high Muslim area and this doesn’t seem to cause an issue for muslim women as they all have doors obviously.

The trouble is, you wouldn't know if it causes issues because you won't see the women who self-exclude from mixed-sex only changing rooms for whatever reason.

Also it's not Muslim women specifically, it's women whose religious beliefs prevent them from being in the company of strange men - which can be women of several different faiths. (I know you're using "shorthand", I just wanted to say that for lurkers.)

That’s the ones who DO go. Plenty of people - for many reasons - won’t go.

My Muslim family wouldn’t - not especially for religious reasons. My (almost) blind sister wouldn’t feel safe changing with male voices around her, I don’t want to be naked around strangers (let alone men).

When I was looking for a new gym I dismissed the ones who couldn’t guarantee single SEX changing rooms.

Why the hell should I be told that I must use facilities alongside men when I don’t feel comfortable (or safe - my old gym was 24hrs with skeleton staff and a keypad entry system)? Because why - ‘inclusivity’? Please explain how this makes the world a better place (and for whom?).

It’s cheaper at the end of the day and I suspect that’s all the companies who run them care about.

Wow !

Why didn't you just use a cubicle? Does it matter if your head is showing?

Yes!

@TheClogLady why?

I bloody hate changing villages. Also if a women feels she would prefer a single sex changing space its perfectly acceptable, it doesn't need justifying and actually should be standard.

It's fucking obvious why any woman want would single sex facilities. Anyone with their faux what's wrong with mixed facilities is frankly a nob probably both metaphorically and literally

If I as a 5ft 8 woman can see the heads of the people in the cubicle then it's reasonable to say that a 6ft 3 man would be able to see completely over the cubicle.

No matter what your personal comfort level is, my personal comfort level does not include getting naked in full view of men I don't know. It sure as hell doesn't include having my 9yo daughter naked in full view of men I don't know. Or women I don't know for that matter, I am not comfortable with public nudity at all, and it is completely reasonable that I should be able to choose to not be naked in front of strangers.

Many places with single sex changing room - if you are concerned , just go to those

This isn’t privacy.

Yes! But getting harder to find due to cost cutting exercise.

I haven't rtft but this is total bollocks, you clearly aren't Muslim.

The way people practice religion varies widely by person. And that's without considering Muslim women who go swimming wearing fully covered attire like the 'burkini' etc in mixed sex pools but still wouldn't want to get fully undressed afterwards in a cubicle next to a man with gaps around the doors.

In France, which is notoriously intolerant of Islam and constantly cited by trans activists everywhere as a country in which single sex spaces do not exist (they do, but not often in public sports facilities), there have been various controversies involving women wishing to wear burkinis (which are sold in Decathlon) in order to swim.

So that alone proves that there are some Muslim women who would like to be able to swim in public within the rules of their religion.

I dont know - but I bet you many still around so take your business there, simples.

Not so ‘dimples’ if you are a non-driver or disabled or restricted by other practicalities though.

Female only, male only, and family change (for mixed sex groups) should be the norm. Unisex just makes opportunities for perverts.

There's a Fifa-approved hijab for football. A Moroccan woman player wore one under her football kit at the last Women's World Cup. It didn't seem to inhibit her, she played really well! The hijab is banned by the French FA, a ban recently upheld by the courts.

I'm totally against burqas etc and the notion that one sex has to be ultra-modest while the other doesn't (which is actually a misinterpretation of the Qu'ran) but how is it helping the case to force women to choose between their religion (and their family and wider community in effect) and playing a sport? It's obvious which they will choose, and it's not the sport.
Anyway, not the main issue, but I had to get that off my chest.

I'm not sure what the answer is but for most it is just that, simples, ie go to another place. why not go less often and use a cab/firned etc unless you have a better idea.

FYI. There is a lot of stuff I don't like, so we just avoid it
Good luck

What will you do if all that avoidance results in nowhere to go?

BTW, those demand separate changing rooms - if the demands were so great, why are gyms/pools driving away business when they clearly need the money?

As I said, if I dont like someothing i will not go there or go there and have to put up with it

Start a petition and see what support you get and present to the management/owners?

Changing rooms always used to be separate for men and women. Adding changing villages or family cubicles was a good idea. Removing single sex changing rooms was not.
The gyms/pools etc have been wrongly informed that they have to have only mixed sex changing to be "inclusive". Other times (new buildings especially) they do it to save money on space. Even when the customers say they want single sex options, the providers plough on because they think they are in the right.
People still go because they have no other choice, some people stop going for that reason. There is a potential discrimination lawsuit at every pool or gym that does not have single sex changing rooms, but it's an expensive and drawn-out process.

Better to have biological sex properly defined in the EQ10 and make some single sex provision compulsory for all businesses/orgs that involve undressing.

Much quicker and more efficient use of our time than petitioning every business individually. Plus all women will then have a single sex option, not just women who live near a particular pool.